They would ask me what actors I saw in the roles. I would tell them, and they’d say “Oh that’s interesting.” And that would be the end of it.
--Elmore Leonard, in 2000, on the extent of his input for Hollywood's adaptation of his novels

Monday, February 6, 2012

Bill Fitzhugh's "The Exterminators"

Bill Fitzhugh is a writer. He’s published novels and short stories, has written television and film scripts, and he writes, produces, and hosts a show on the Deep Track Channel of Sirius-XM Satellite radio.

Here Fitzhugh shares some insights into bringing his written work to the big screen:

My first novel, Pest Control, started life as a screenplay that every studio in Los Angeles rejected. After I turned it into a novel, Warner Brothers bought the rights and paid several people to turn it back into a screenplay and then didn't bother to make it. And now, I've just published the sequel, The Exterminators. Warner Brothers owns the rights to the characters to this too. Back in 1991 when my then screenwriting partner and I were writing the script, we had Billy Crystal in mind for Bob Dillon and Arnold Schwarzenegger in mind for Klaus. Billy is too old for the part now, but Arnold would be perfect (in fact even better now that he's older). The same thing that happened with Pest Control also happened with Cross Dressing. Wrote a screenplay that every studio in town rejected. Then I wrote it as a novel and Universal Studios bought it. I didn't really have any actors in mind for Dan Steele or Sister Peg. So feel free to read it and do the casting yourself.

“Compared to a novel, a film is like an economy pizza where there are no olives, no ham, no anchovies, no mushrooms, and all you’ve got is the dough.”
--Louis de Bernières, author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin